: the expiration :

You see, noise pollution is her vocation. She has a fervent, God-given talent, this woman does, for straining furniture and floor joists and rebar to the thunderous brink of implosion. Only airport runways operate at similar decibels.

It seems I’ve spent a lifetime trapped beneath a hat with earflaps, one cinched tight over ears already crammed with cotton and buried under folded socks. But no more. I have, at long last, found a way to defend myself: Aerosmith. Steven Tyler drives her right out of her over-stressed chair and down the stairs to lé boyfriend’s apartment. She specifically dislikes Living on the Edge, but anything Aerosmith does the trick.

Oh, how I love the sound of those gigantic, angry feet stomping their way out the door. It lifts my heart like nothing else.

The only snag is, Aerosmith gets me amped. And 4:00 in the morning is too early to be amped. 4:00 in the morning is too early to be anything but asleep. What can you do at that time of day? The world is closed. So I did the only thing I could think of: I made coffee. Bleary-eyed and a little jangled, I scooped and measured and waited, drumming my fingers beside the mug.

By the third cup I noticed an inappropriate aroma; it was rank and a little putrid. My nose wrinkled in distaste. I picked up the milk carton and clapped eyes on the expiration date: 11-24-2015. Ten long days ago. No, I know, it won’t kill me. Just make me so violently sick I’ll wish it would

We may live under the same person. I swear she owns a furniture factory up there, where her sweat shop of stolen elves work over night.

My upstairs neighbor has an incredibly strong sense of smell, and a number of very peculiar behaviors. One of which is to stand near her stove, not in front of it, but near it where a corner of the wall juts out, I hear her standing there for hours. Why? I have no idea. She’s very nice, but I won’t lie, it freaks me out. One of her other talents is to use one of those classroom vac things that has no motor but rolls around and picks up scraps of paper on floors, and make an orchestral fanfare. It doesn’t have a motor, and yet, it wakes me up at 3:30 in the morning all the same.

Our care taker also seems to have learned how to vacuum from her as well, seeing as she slams the thing into the walls of the hallway as if she is convinced it will make it clean better. It has woken up my daughter every single week since she took the position.

Oh, my, I feel your pain. Apartment living, I’ve decided, is awful. Someone told me never to live anywhere but a top floor if you live in one. And they’re absolutely right. The woman above me isn’t nice, she’s a health hazard. She never leaves her chair — ever. She never vacuums or washes dishes or does laundry or sleep or cook, just squirms and writhes in that poor, battered piece of furniture. Oy.

That is gross and horribly concerning. I am not always great at keeping up with cleaning, but at least I leave my bed and chairs. (Although sometimes at work I feel like I will live and die in that chair)